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THE HEART OF THE WARRIOR
ORIGINS AND RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND
OF THE SAMURAI SYSTEM IN FEUDAL JAPAN
In memory of my mother, Dagmar Blomberg rvke Tygnaeus,
14 September 1904-17 October 1993
The
Heart
of t he
Warrior
Origins and Religious
Background of the
Samurai System in
Feudal Japan
Catharina
Blomberg
13 Routledge
jjj^^ Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
THE HEART OF THE WARRIOR
ORIGINS AND RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND
OF THE SAMURAI SYSTEM IN FEUDAL JAPAN
First published 1994 by
Routledge
Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Ltd
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN
© Catharina Blomberg 1994
Reprinted (Paper) 1995, 2000
Transferred to Digital Printing 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means,
without prior permission from the Publishers
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN: 1-873410-06-9 (Case)
ISBN: 1-873410-13-1 (Paper)
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the
quality of this reprint but points out that some
imperfections in the original may be apparent
Printed and bound by CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction vii
CHAPTER 1
The Formation of a Warrior Nobility 1
CHAPTER 2
Bushi Attitudes Towards the Traditional Religions 18
CHAPTER 3
Duty, Privilege and Loyalty: Religious and Practical
Concerns
Part I : Swords and Sword-fighting Techniques 48
Part II : Seppuku, Junshi and the Taking of Heads 72
Part III : Allegiance, Oaths and Bushi Organisations 91
CHAPTER 4
Bushido: The Concept of Chivalry
Part I : Early Notions of Chivalry and Its Legal Aspects 105
Part II : Warrior Ethics East and West 123
Part III : Early Confucian Influence 135
Part IV : The Tokugawa Bakufu and the Codification 149
of Bushido
Part V : The Ako Affair 167
Part VI : The Tokugawa Peace and the Intrusion of the 177
Western World
CHAPTER 5
Bushi Influence on Culture and the Arts 194
Footnotes 207
Bibliography 216
Index 222
Acknowledgements
A
number of institutions have provided me with financial
and other assistance during the research for and writing
of this book, and I would like to express my profound
gratitude to them all.
The Japan Foundation awarded me a twelve-month Fel
lowship in 1980-1981, enabling me to gather material in
Tokyo, Nara and Kyoto and view temples, shrines and
museum collections.
The then Japan Institute at Harvard University, now the
Reischauer Institute, provided me with an office during
Michaelmas Term 1984.
Adolf Lindgrens Stiftelse of Orebro, my native city,
honoured me in 1984 with the first of their newly instituted
research grants, making it possible for me to spend Michael
mas Term 1985 in Cambridge, working on material in the
University Library.
I returned to Cambridge and my research in the Univer
sity Library for the academic year 1986-1987, when Clare
Hall awarded me the Hambro Fellowship, providing me
with excellent board and lodging in College.
Finally, I wish to extend my warm thanks once again to
the Japan Foundation for a second twelve-month Fellow
ship in 1991-1992, which will, D.V., eventually result in a
book on another aspect of the lives of the bushi.
Stockholm, Summer 1993
CATHARINA BLOMBERG
Introduction
'Le guerrier/BUSHI/est pour le Japon ce que le Chevalier
est pour 1'Occident, sa religion a, commela Chevalerie, son
ethique propre qui a ses fiddles et peut avoir ses martyrs.'
The warrior (bushi) is for Japan what the knight is for the
West. His religion, like Chivalry, has its own ethic, which
has its faithful and may have its martyrs/
Frederic Joiion des Longrais, L'Est et VOuest, Institutions du Japon et
de VOccident Comparees, Maison Franco-Japonaise, Tokyo/Institut de
Recherches d'Histoire Etrangere, Paris, 1958, p. 146.
T
he samurai in full and resplendent armour springs
suddenly out of the pages of the early Kamakura period
war chronicles, Gunki Monogatari, not unlike Pallas Athene
emerging fully armed from the forehead of her father Zeus.
The real turning-point in the fortunes of the samurai, or
bushi, came with the Gempei War, 1180-1185. The out
come of this war determined the political situation in Ja
pan during the following seven centuries. While the victo
rious Minamoto clan had retained a firm power base in the
Kanto region, the so-called Eastern Provinces, the Taira
clan had become closely allied with the court nobility, or
kuge. Taira Kiyomori, the leader of the clan, not only held
the highest ministerial office, but was also the maternal
grandfather of the young Emperor Antoku. Especially among
the Kanto bushi the rapprochement between warrior and
court nobilities effected by the Taira was regarded as one
of the principal reasons for the downfall of the clan.
For centuries the warrior nobility had led lives com
pletely different from those of the kuge, despite the fact that
many of the leading bushi families were descended from
vii
viii INTRODUCTION
cadet branches of the kuge, or even from Imperial princes.
For younger sons, even of illustrious families, few opportu
nities presented themselves for making a career in the
capital and obtaining a suitable position at the Imperial
court. In the provinces, however, there was scope for con
siderably improving their economic conditions. There they
were able to live off the land, more or less as gentlemen
farmers, setting up and maintaining local guard forces. The
Imperial rule of the Asuka period had developed out of a
system of primus inter pares, and even in the Heian period
there were occasionally rebellious local chieftains to sub
due and attacks by pirates and Ainu to repel. When they
returned to the Imperial capital on guard duty, however,
the provincial bushi were treated with disdain by the kuge.
For centuries the bushi remained in a subordinate posi
tion, being regarded as uncouth rustics and denied access
to polite society. The Heian court ladies, who created an
entire literary genre with their novels and diaries, were
members of the kuge and displayed a remarkable lack of
interest in the provincial guardsmen at the Imperial court,
whom they regarded as no more than another category of
servants.
With the GempeiWar and the ascendancy of the warrior
nobility the situation changed drastically. The bushi were
henceforth not only the holders of political power, they also
turned into arbiters of fashion and patrons of the arts,
becoming the leading force behind cultural and ethical
developments. Life at the Imperial court continued along
much the same lines as before, although the customary
splendour must have seemed a little lacklustre. Kamakura,
on the East coast, where the victorious Minamoto Yoritomo
established his warrior government, Bakufu, was the cen
tre from which new ideas were disseminated. From the
outset the Bakufu made strenuous efforts to maintain the
simple and frugal habits which had characterised the pro
vincial bushi, and on which the successful outcome of the
Gempei War was considered to have been founded.
Minamoto Yoritomo was the first to lay down the stern
precepts of his so-called House Laws, which later devel
oped into the legal code regulating the practical aspects of
the lives of the bushi.
Many ethical aspects of bushi life and thought are illus-
INTRODUCTION IX
trated by the Gunki Monogatari (Tales of Warfare) a literary
genre which flourished in the early Kamakura period. In
works such as the Hogen and Heike Monogatari the samu
rai are presented to the reader as they saw themselves and
as they wished to be seen. Heian literary influence is
noticeable, although the tables were now turned in that the
samurai were the undisputed heroes. The Gunki Monogatari,
especially the Heike Monogatari which is an account of the
Gempei War, represented the bushi as dashing, splendidly
attired warriors of prodigious military prowess. These tales
became classics of popular entertainment until modern
times. They were recited in public by blind ambulant monks,
biwa-hoshi, who accompanied themselves on the biwa, a
string instrument resembling a lute. The Gunki Monogatari
combined epic accounts of battles and the exploits of fa
mous samurai with the unmistakably Buddhist flavour of
moral tales designed to illustrate the vanity of human
endeavour. The popular conception of what the samurai
were like and how they ought to behave was formed at least
partly by the Gunki Monogatari. Their themes were em
broidered upon and embellished over the centuries as the
samurai and their warlike feats became part of the tradi
tional folklore.
Apart from frequent mentions of warfare and warriors in
the earliest historical chronicles, the Kojiki and the NihongU
and occasional references by Heian poets and poetesses,
the Gunki Monogatari are the first literary sources dealing
with warriors in their own right. In contrast to the Kojiki
and the NihongU where the mythical and semi-mythical
warrior heroes vanquished their foes by treacherous means
without the slightest hint of remorse, the Gunki Monogatari
represented the bushi as thinking individuals endowed
with human feelings. On the battlefield they were shown to
act in an almost ritualistic manner according to certain
rules of conduct. At this stage, however, it is apparent that
these rules were not yet completely fixed, and many devia
tions from the norm are recorded. What might, somewhat
anachronistically, be called unchivalrous behaviour was
sometimes condemned in strong terms, but there are not
a few examples in the tales of war of rewards and favours
obtained by unfair or treacherous means. The code of
behaviour which later became known as Bushido (the Way
